​Before we can even start talking about individual characters, I have to deal with the fact that Marvel studios sold the screen rights to their characters off to other studios way back in the 1990's and for the last 10 years or so have been desperately trying to get them back. The Geek Twins made this handy-dandy visual guide so that you can refer to it if/when you get confused as we go on this supersuit journey together. Stupid Marvel!

Fantastic Four Franchise

The Fantastic Four are Silver Age superheros first appearing in 1961. Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm were exposed to cosmic radiation while on a scientific mission of space exploration. Reed became super-stretchy and called himself Mr. Fantastic. Sue became invisible and able throw a defensive shield around an item or person. and called herself Invisible Woman. Johnny can become fire and has the power of flight, calling himself The Human Torch. Ben becomes an orange rock monster and calls himself The Thing. Of the four, he's the only one who is permanently his super persona, being unable to change back into his human form. Eventually Reed and Sue get married and have two children Franklin and Valeria.

Their costumes traditionally are a medium blue jumpsuit with black collars, belts, boots, and gloves, with the number 4 on the chest. Mr. Fantastic's suit stretches with him, Johnny's always survives the fire, Sue's turns invisible with her, and Ben only wears the pants because the shirt was too constricting. The collars become wider, skinnier, and then wider again, and sometimes they are white rather than black. And, if you weren't already a fan, this is the team that The Incredibles are based on.

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

​Marvel sold the film rights to Twentieth Century Fox. Unlike the 1990 Captain America film that finally got released straight to video after two years, the 1994 Fantastic Four was never going to be released when they filmed it. Fox only made the movie to keep the rights. I bet Reve Richards was super pissed when he found out. All that hard work and no one will ever see it. And it's too bad because at least from this one photo, they look pretty good. These costumes are based on the 1983 "Negative Zone" run. Unfortunately, Ben Grimm's The Thing prosthetics make him look more like a prehistoric lizard monster rather than the big orange rock monster we all know and love.

From left to right: Carl Ciarfalio, Rebecca Staab, Alex Hyde-White, and Jay Underwood,

​On to the next iteration. First, a word about casting choices. Don't cast a Latina actress and then white-wash her to make her look like Chris Evans' sister. That was a bad decision. This is the only time where you should cast an actual white girl. I'm looking at you Doctor Strange casting director. The best thing about these movies is The Thing. Michael Chiklis is a great Ben Grimm. Other than that, these are weak movies. I watched them both when they came out and there was just nothing that made me want to go see them again.

Let's talk about the supersuits in the first two movies. Long black gloves, and tall black boots, off-center number 4 on the upper left chest: That part they got right. The suits are too dark (just like everything else these days) and the black belts around the waist seem to have been replaced with a black V design line on the chest that points to the crotches on the men and undercuts Jessica Alba's boobs. it's just weird and doesn't evoke Fantastic Four to me. And I never thought I'd have to write this, but thank you Jose Fernandez and Mary E. Vogt for putting pants on The Thing.

​The middle two films are weak, but the re-boot version, directed by Josh Trank, is just bad. Not that it's HIS fault. I could enumerate all the things that are wrong with this reboot, but we just don't have time for that. One thing I do want to mention is that this movie got a lot of heat for casting Michael B. Jordan to play Johnny Storm. I am all for diversity in casting. In fact, instead of casting a white actress to play Sue, I thought it would have been better to cast a black actress and let Sue and Reed be an interracial couple, assuming this iteration ever got a sequel for them to be a couple in (NOT). Anyway, that one casting choice was not what made this movie suck. It doesn't matter to me what color or gender the actors are who play these roles. Those details change over time in the source material, sometimes with every new writer/artist team that creates them. What made the movie suck is the script and the fact that Trank fought with the cast the whole shoot.

From left to right: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Michael B. Jordan.

Let's talk about the costumes. The suits have nothing to do with comic book canon and if Ben Grimm weren't in the photo I would have no idea what movie it was from. A word about CGI. CGI can't save a bad movie but it can kill a weak one, cough cough Green Lantern. I like The Thing being in heavy prosthetic makeup and real pants rather than CGI. It worked just fine for Michael Chiklis and going back much further, Ron Perlman in Hellboy. I'd much rather see a real actor in makeup than a motion capture suit that you've animated a costume on top of. Everyone's acting is better when you're acting with another actor rather than a green screen. Not that that would have saved this movie. But for god's sake, please put some pants on The Thing. He's still a man, he still has some dignity, right? Because all I can think of when I watch this is, "Poor guy, he lost his penis." Because he looks like a cross between a naked GI Joe doll and the rock monster from Galaxy Quest. And at least Gorignak had a penis.

​So we've had two weak films and a bad reboot. You'd think Fox would be ready to sell back the rights to these characters, You'd be wrong. Due to bad negotiation, Marvel now can't get them back. In an act of high dudgeon, Marvel canceled the comic series as well as all merchandise licensing, before the release of the last movie because one of the clauses is that any new character Marvel creates, automatically belongs to Fox. So Marvel has taken their ball and gone home. Fox has responded with the announcement that Fox is going to re-reboot FF as a kids' show along the lines of The Incredibles, but where the lead characters are the kids of Sue and Reed, rather than the actual FF team. Looks like it's going to be animated though, rather than live action, but with a script by Seth Grahame-Smith. Well Fantastic Four, Fox is just never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry (just the fans) never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Spider-Man Franchise

Spider-Man first appeared in 1962 and was the first teenaged superhero that was THE HERO and not the hero's sidekick. Peter Parker was just an ordinary NYC high school student when he was bitten by a radioactive spider giving him super powers. Peter struggles with taking care of his family, juggling his school work and job at the Bugle, trying to date girls, all the while fighting crime on the side. It's a tough life, but with great power comes great responsibility and it's his personal life that always seems to lose out.

Spider-Man's suit is a classic one: patriotic red and blue suit with black lines of spider webbing running all over. He's got a black spider logo on his chest and another one on his back. His mask has white eyes outlined in black. Sometimes he has white webbing under his arms and sometimes he doesn't.

Gallery of Costume Design

Spider-Man was introduced as a new character in the fourth season of a PBS educational program for kids called The Electric Company, a show I watched religiously. Spider-Man would appear for short segments throughout the season to foil villains, nab bad guys or just generally help out. Danny Seagren looks great in his sleek Spidey-suit. It's not wrinkly, baggy, or saggy. The suit itself is a nice matte stretch-knit, not shiny, not latex. No built in fake muscles, no armor.

Danny Seagren The Electric Company, 1974-77

The only odd thing about this version of the web-slinger is that he doesn't have a voice and only talks in thought bubbles while the other cast members speak. I didn't get why that was until my husband pointed out that the whole point was to get kids to practice reading. Duh. I was 8 when Spider-Man joined The Electric Company and could already read. I was probably too busy showing off for my mom and baby sister to notice that Spidey didn't talk. Here's a typical segment from the show.

Because the Spider-Man segments were so popular on The Electric Company, when the show got canceled, Spider-Man took his act on the road and starred in his own show that ran for two seasons on CBS, the network that was also responsible for all of the other superheroes on TV at the time: Wonder Woman, Shazam!, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Doctor Strange. Nicholas Hammond played Peter Parker and he looks equally good in his suit. The eyes are a tad weird looking probably because they are too small in proportion to his head. And I'm not sure what the deal is with that white utility belt he's wearing in this photo.

Nicholas Hammond The Amazing Spider-Man, 1977-79

​For the time Spidey's wall-crawling and web-slinging abilities were really great special effects for TV. And the reason that the show was canceled after only 13 episodes was that it was too expensive to produce. Here's a clip. Peter's stunt double Fred Waugh, who is in the suit in this clip, was also the stunt coordinator for the show. It's fairly long and drawn out but at least watch until he's done fighting Ninjas in the hallway. After that they go up on the roof. It's fairly obvious how they did the wall-crawling now, but back then it was genius!

​Marvel sold the film rights to Sony in the 90's. Sony made $800 million off of the first three movies, starring Tobey Maquire. Tobey Maguire found out early in filming that he was highly claustrophobic and couldn't wear the suit with his face covered. So it's only Tobey in the suit when you can see his face. All other shots are of stuntman Zach Hudson. And the suit does look fantastic on him.

As discussed in a previous blog, Peter Parker made his own suit. Yeah, right, sure he did. The only suit Peter Parker is capable of making is his wrestling costume. His actual suit was designed by James Acheson as one piece, except for the hood. He takes his hood off a lot. Later on a fly vent was added so that the poor man in the suit could go potty without having to take the whole thing off. You'd think that Acheson would have thought of that early on in the process. The Spidey suit really did look amazing. It was the peak of perfection of supersuits of its time. The one thing that bothered some fans, but not me, was that his spider webbing goo was organic and not something he invented. I didn't have a problem with that. It went right along with his improved muscle mass, eyesight, and coordination. The first movie was great, the second was not as great and the third movie was just crap. No one wanted to see Emo Spidey no matter how cool the Venom suit looked.

​The reboot films star Andrew Garfield. The problem with these films may have been that Peter Parker was played by a 34 year old Englishman whose accent kept wandering. ​Also, he skateboards all over New York City, but now that he has super-powers he has to practice his skateboarding tricks in a "training montage". Shouldn't he be practicing web-slinging from building to building? It seems like that might be a harder trick to master. My husband joked that he should have been called Peter Parkour. Really the best and most believeable thing about the first movie was the relationship between Sally Field and Martin Sheen as Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

Again we are given the trope that Peter makes his own costume. I was laughing my ass off when he was hand-sewing his hood. Then he does a google search for fabric, "spandex, spandex, spandex". Am I really supposed to believe he hand-sewed his suit from a bolt of fabric with no pattern? Who did his fittings? Then he screen prints the spider logo on the chest, incorporates sunglass lenses into the hood, and his costume is all done and fits perfectly. And he does his own laundry. I guess the suit is machine washable. Also, he didn't invent his web shooting goo, he stole it from Oscorp. What?

The real problem with the supersuit in the first movie is that it's from Bizzaro-world. In no iteration is there a stripe up the leg or does the red area of the torso go that low down into his crotch. In fact, it ends in a princess waistline that is poking out on top of the bulge of his penis. This is not a good look for a superhero. There are curvilinear lines that travel all around the suit like they're drunk. If you look at the detail view of the fabric, it resembles a basketball with tiny holes punched into the fabric. The spider logo both front and back has super long legs that just keep going and going. And what is up with the white striping details on his boots? If you are from Texas, that totally reads as a cowboy boot heel. But these are aesthetic complaints. A more practical complaint is that he made his eyes out of sunglasses, fine for daytime crime-fighting, not so hot for nighttime vigilantism. This Spidey looks like he has a perpetual wedgie. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! Mama mia, mama mia! Mama mia, let me go! Beelzebub has a devil put aside for Sony! Sony! Sonyyyyyyy! And don't get me wrong, I feel really sorry for Andrew Garfield because he loves this character so much (it was his first Halloween costume when he was 3) and really wanted these movies to be good. But they just weren't.

Andrew Garfield front

Andrew Garfield side view

Andrew Garfield back view

I don't know if it was the nerd rage over the suit that influenced Sony's decision to get a new costume designer and redesign the suit for the sequel, but it didn't fix the inherent problems with the reboot, which is that the actors playing Peter and Gwen were too old to be graduating high school and that the script was bad. Nevertheless, Sony felt it was worth a shot, so Spider-Man's eyes went from small and black to large and white, the random leg stripe disappeared, the cowboy striped boot heel and toe also vanished, and the red area on the torso was raised, curved off at center front, and no longer points at his penis. So, yes, thank you for the fixing the most egregious problems with the suit. It still didn't fix the casting or the acting or the screen-writing. ​​The reboot movies tanked so hard that the third one was canceled. Thanks for not beating a dead horse, Sony, a la Fox and Fantastic Four.

Andrew Garlield in Amazing Spider-Man 2, 2014.

Marvel has now reached an agreement in which Sony retains the stand alone movie rights while Marvel regains creative control over the character in all formats. Which is why Spidey got to be in Civil War with the rest of the Avengers. Tom Holland is the new Spider-Man and he's a wee 5'8" and just turned 20 when Civil War was released. I was surprised to find out that he's also English because his accent doesn't wander all over the place.Looking at his baby face I totally believe that he's 15. Also, Tom is a gymnast and a dancer--he played the lead in Billy Elliot: The Musical.

So here's the new suit that Tony Stark made. The spider logo on the chest is much smaller than we've seen before. You probably didn't notice but the eyes actually change sizes on camera, just like real eyes, they can squint with suspicion or open up really wide in surprise. The spider web lines only show up on the red parts of the costume and are actually two faint lines drawn right next to each other, rather than the thick, raised lines from the Tobey Maguire run. The blue parts have lines that resemble a technical drawing rather than spider webbing. I'm not sure what practical function these darker, thicker black lines serve, but maybe we'll find out in Homecoming. His web shooters take the form of grey bracelets probably a product of Stark Industries as well.

I hear that we'll get a home-made version of the Spidey suit as well in the new movie but thank you, screen writers, for letting Tony Stark take all the credit for manufacturing this suit. Costume designers everywhere are applauding. I can't wait to see the crappy, home-made version.

​Homecoming will be a collaboration between Sony and Marvel. Smart Sony! Smart Marvel! Hopefully Homecoming (release date July 7) will prove that collaboration makes better movies and more money and then Fox will fall in line with FF, because them giving up any control over X-Men is probably just too much to ever hope for.

X-Men Franchise

The X-Men appeared in 1963. The X-Men are a group of mutants at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. They are born with an eXtra gene that manifests at puberty which gives them unique abilities that they must learn to use and control. It is my belief that these themes are the reason that this franchise is so overwhelmingly popular among teenagers because it connects with them on a personal level. The X-Men are trying to be accepted as human, to gain equal rights, and to be left alone to lead ordinary lives. Unfortunately, human-kind is prejudiced against them and fears them. Politically, humans are persecuting the mutant population, trying to get all mutants put away or locked up. Some mutants believe ordinary humans should be wiped out and mutants should rule the world. This faction of mutants is led by Charles Xavier's frenemy, Magneto. The title was concerned with social issues and used the anti-mutant themes to explore a variety of minority issues specifically racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, and LGBT persecution. As Chris Claremont said, "The X-Men are hated, feared, and despised collectively by humanity for no other reason than that they are mutants. So what we have here, intended or not, is a book that is about racism, bigotry, and prejudice."

The original 1963 team members were Iceman, Angel, Beast, Cyclops, and Jean Grey in her Marvel Girl persona with Professor X as their teacher. Magneto was leading the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with his children Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as well as Mastermind and Toad. Havok and Polaris were added as good guys later on to increase sales but it didn't work and Marvel stopped producing new stories. Eventually the title was canceled at the end of the Silver Age for 5 years.

Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, and Chris Claremont revived the title in 1975 with new team members from all over the world. The Uncanny X-Men were Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Sunfire, Thunderbird, and Storm, and were led by Cyclops. The bad guys got a new character as well: Mystique. The 1980's saw the greatest moment in X-Men canon: the Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix saga. Other important storylines include "Days of Future Past", "The Trial of Magneto", and "God Loves, Man Kills" all of which were incorporated into the film franchise.

By the early 80's X-Men was Marvel's top selling title which spawned five spin-off titles and longer stories were carried across all titles. Toward the end of the decade more new characters were added: Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke, Dazzler, and Jubilee. Apocalypse and Sabretooth were added to the ranks of bad guys. In a strange turn of events, Magneto becomes a good guy and takes over the teaching of the young mutants in Xavier's school.

In the 1990's a new title was launched in which the teams were broken up into two--Cyclop's blue team and Storm's gold team. New characters were Gambit, Cable, and Bishop. Emma Frost becomes a good guy and also teaches at the school. More new titles were launched, including Deadpool which we will get to in a minute. The animated series was launched in 1992 and ran for 5 seasons. Then 3 years later Fox starts making movies.

Timeline of Comics Costumes

Cyclops

Cyclops is an original team member. His powers are laser beam eyes that he must shield with special glasses so as not to blow up everyone he sees. His real name is Scott Summers and he is dating Jean Grey. He has a younger brother named Arthur who is also a mutant and becomes Havok later on. Cyclops is the leader of the team and he prefers blue and yellow for his supersuit, the original team colors. Later on, when they split into two teams, Cylcops leads the blue team and Storm leads the gold team.

Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix

Jean Grey is also an original team member and a ginger. Jean's mutant powers are telepathy and telekinesis. In addition to being a mutant, she's also a designer and a model and takes it up on herself to design the team uniforms. She starts off as Marvel Girl, then she dies, and comes back to life as Phoenix, then gets taken over by evil and becomes Dark Phoenix, then sacrifices herself to save the universe. Then comes back (again) and finally marries Scott in 1994.

Storm

Storm joined the X-Men in the relaunch effort of Uncanny X-men. She's from Africa and is the daughter of a priestess. Here real name is Ororo Munroe and her mutant power is that she can control the weather. She has white hair and blue eyes. She went through punk phase in the late 70's before losing her powers and running off to Asgard to be a goddess. She then regains her powers, and heads the gold team. Later on she marries Black Panther and becomes his Queen.

Rogue

Rogue is from Mississippi and is very Southern. Her real name is Anna Marie and she has a streak of white in her brown hair. Her mutant power is that she sucks the life out of anyone she touches and (if mutant) absorbs their powers for a time. Rogue joined the team in 1981, absorbed Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) who remains a distinct personality in her head until killed by Magneto. She is assigned to Cyclop's blue team with Gambit, who she had a relationship with, although what that entailed we are not sure since she can't touch or be touched without deadly consequences.

Psylocke

Psylocke first appeared in 1986. She was originally named Betsy Braddock and was English. When her mutant powers manifested, she got purple hair. Her powers are telepathy but not fighting skills until she fell into enemy hands during a mission and was altered with purple cameras for eyes and brainwashed. She was then rescued, killed and resurrected, but then lost by the X-Men and found by Mandarin, unconscious with no memories. Mandarin had her consciousness transferred into an Japanese brain-dead ninja woman and she became the assassin Psylocke. Don't worry, she was eventually found and rescued by the X-Men again.

Wolverine

Wolverine was added to the X-Men in 1975 as part of a plan to diversify the team and boost sales. Wolverine was born James Howlett in Canada, although he's actually the illegitimate son of his parents' groundskeeper, Thomas Logan who killed Wolverine's father. Wolverine manifests his bone claws and then kills Logan in return. His mutation allows him to live a very extended life and he eventually serves in WW I and II. At some point the military gets ahold of him and coats his skeleton with adamantium to turn him into Weapon X. Later he joins the X-Men when Charles Xavier recruits him. He has since become the most popular member of the team.

Gallery of Costume Design

Marvel sold the rights to the movies to Fox in 1993, so that's who's responsible for this mess. The problem is that it's a highly profitable one, unlike Fantastic Four. This is more complicated than the other two. Fox owns the right to the term mutant and any characters who were part of the X-men team, but they need Marvel to sign off on all television deals, which is why you haven't seen any live action X-Men on TV yet. There was an animated series in 1992 (before the legal wheeling and dealing) as a Saturday morning cartoon that ran for 5 seasons. What we're talking about now is the nine feature films and Hugh Jackman got to be in every single one of them. Many different characters have been part of the X-Men film franchise. The most popular characters that have made it into the films are Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Rogue, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Archangel, Mystique, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Psylocke, Quicksilver, but not Scarlet Witch.

My biggest complaint about the entire franchise is that the team is no longer in their classic costumes and everyone looks the same in all black leather. Cyclops even makes a joke about it.

​Yes, actually, I would prefer yellow spandex. This is how the team looked in The Uncanny X-Men in 1991. At this point in time the X-Men have gone back to wearing team uniforms newly designed by Jean Grey, inspired by the original black and yellow uniforms but with blue instead of black. with the addition of the red belts.

I blame this entire phenomenon of all black costumes on The Matrix which dropped in 1999. Kym Barrett was the designer on that film. In The Matrix, everyone is in black. It was a great look for The Matrix because that film is a dystopian sci-fi thriller. And it worked. With the immense popularity and financial success of The Matrix, (it made $463 million world-wide)and it's continued franchise success with two sequels, nine animated films, three video games, and a reboot currently in the works, it's hard not to get sucked into thinking that this is the best way to costume a movie. Everybody had Matrix fever.

The Matrix, 1999. From left to right: Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne.

However, The X-Men comics are not a dystopian sci-fi thriller, they are a superhero fantasy that is equal parts funny and action/adventure. My husband's opinion is that The Matrix just stole this look from Hellraiser, so it's all Clive Barker's fault. Keanu just needs to shave his head and have pins sticking out of his face, I'm surprised no one has done a parody mashup version already. Seth Green: Please, please, please do this on Robot Chicken! But I digress.

Hellraiser, 1987. From left to right: Butterball, Pinhead, The Female, and Chatterer.

So let's just take a minute to remember what the X-Men looked like on TV from 1992-1997. There's Wolverine in his yellow spandex and Rogue and Banshee, Gambit and Jubilee. Not only were the costumes colorful and unique to each character but, more importantly, this was a good show. The stories were straight from the comic books, there were good lessons for kids, good role models too. Strong female characters that get equal screen time and more lines than, "Yes, Professor." Half of Season 3 was the Dark Phoenix saga.

​​So why just three years later, do we lose all the color and uniqueness of each character and get this exactly the same black leather team uniform? Louise Migenback is the designer who's mostly responsible for this all black version of The X-Men. She was responsible for the first two and 3 more of the nine total films, which translates into 4/6 of the films I'll be talking about here. ​The problem here, Fox and Louise, is that any time you have a group of people who are all wearing uniforms, it's that much harder for the audience to tell them apart. And the minute bits of differently colored trim outlining the X just isn't enough. Especially in a two hour movie (compared to a TV series) when you just don't have that much time to get to know these dozen or so characters, you need more differentiation between their costumes to help the audience keep them all straight. Scroll down and look at all the group photos: a sea of heads in black suits. BORING! ​ And it just keeps going, and going, and going like the Energizer Bunny.

X-Men, 2000

X 2, 2003

Last Stand, 2006

And now I'm going on a feminism rant so bear with me. Storm is regarded as Marvel's most important female superhero. Not only was she one of the first black superheroes in general, but Storm was also the first female black superhero. Her historical significance is that the two defining aspects of her personality are her racial identity and her social status as a mutant. Because the debut of the series coincided with the Civil Rights Movement. the plight of the mutants has always mirrored that of African-Americans. Storm's creation in particular is seen as a strike against the hey-day of Blaxploitation films. Which is why it is so very distressing to me that these films gave Halle Berry almost nothing to do. Storm is a team leader. She took over running the team for Cyclops at one point and then led her gold team while Cylcops led the blue team. She is strong and makes good decisions in clutch situations. Where is the Storm stand alone film? Halle Berry really wants to do one.

Here's the costume problem with Storm. Darker skinned actors don't show up as well in all black costumes as their lighter skinned counterparts. The artists who drew her knew that and fairly soon she ended up in white. Where is Storm's white costume, Louis? Also, this wig is super awful and doesn't add any height. Her hair should be a mane that flies out all around her when she's using her powers.

​Mystique has lost all her clothes and developed some sort of skin disease, which I feel was just an excuse to sell a bunch of repeat tickets to teenage boys because Rebecca Romjin-Stamos was naked the whole time. She wears a white dress with a skull belt in the comics, but not in the movies. She has clothes on when she's impersonating someone else in the movies, so she's clearly capable of shape-shifting herself with clothes. Why is Mystique, one of only 4 lead female characters in the whole franchise, naked all the time? Yes, it's a really cool makeup job but you'd have had to do less of it if you'd just given her a costume and some dignity. Also, she hardly has any lines either.

​Last Stand completely screws up the Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix story arc. The whole point of her character arc is that when she is recruited by Charles she is Marvel Girl. She becomes Phoenix when she sacrifices herself to save her teammates but is saved by an alien entity The Phoenix Force. She rises from the shipwreck as Phoenix in a green and gold costume. Later she is overwhelmed by evil and becomes Dark Phoenix and her costume changes to the very similar red and gold one. Dark Phoenix goes on a destructive rampage and after consuming a star and killing millions of people, Jean's personality finally resurfaces, manages to gain control over her body and commits suicide to save the world.

​So the real problem here is that at no point do we ever get her transformation from Marvel Girl to Phoenix in the films, which is fine as long as you start the films with her already being Phoenix. Then when we do get her transition to Dark Phoenix her costume has to change colors. Instead what we get is this horrible black leather outfit that everyone else is wearing. Her Dark Phoenix costume looks like clothes, not a uniform nor a supersuit. Is it really too much to ask Fox for a supersuit, Judiana Makovsky and Lisa Tomczeszyn? Just one? Because I absolutely hate what she's wearing. In fact, it looks no different than what Marvel put Scarlet Witch in for Civil War, another design decision that was equally as bad.

Phoenix

Famke Janssem

Dark Phoenix

Famke Janssen

Then there's Rogue. Rogue is the character Fox gets the most wrong. First, she was taken in by Mystique and Magneto and spent her first years as a bad guy until Professor X saves her and brings her to the school, which means she's not traveling with Wolverine until rescued by Storm and Cyclops. Second, Rogue doesn't show up at the school till the 80's, but the present day of the first film is 2000. Third, when she sets her sights on a boy it's Gambit not Iceman (Bobby), because Iceman was an original character and by the present day of the first film would be the same age as Cyclops and Storm. The whole thing is just all screwed up. But, even if you ignore how off the timeline of these characters are, Rogue still has more problems. She does not have a thing for Wolverine, ever, that was Kitty Pryde. And she is one tough cookie. Fox's Rogue is a weak victim whose only purpose is to make goo-goo eyes at Wolverine, and get stabbed, killed, kidnapped, manipulated, pitied, and rescued.

Classic Rogue is always in green. Green is her signature color. Partially because she sucks the life out of anyone she touches and partially because she's jealous of everyone else who can touch and be touched by others. Of all the X-Men, Rogue is the most physically isolated. Fox at least gives her gloves to wear so that she doesn't accidentally touch anyone, but more often than not when she's not in the black leather suit, Anna Paquin has got so much exposed skin, that I'm sure she accidentally touched all her fellow actors while filming which is something that Rogue the character was always super cautious about. I just don't see that level of care taken with her character or her character's clothing choices.

And thus ends the first trilogy about adult X-Men in the present day in 2000. Now we're going back in time. So once we remove the three installments about just Wolverine (Origins, Wolverine, or Logan) what we have left is the prequel trilogy that takes place at various stages in the past and is about the characters' younger selves. So the prequel trilogy starts with First Class which is set in the 1963. Finally we get some actual yellow on the uniforms, thanks to a new designer, Samantha Sheldon. First, let's remember how the original 1963 team looked in the comics, which is who this group of characters is supposed to be. There's Erik in his Magneto supervillian costume, Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Iceman being all icey, his uniform is underneath all the ice. Notice that Beast did not start out being blue.

First issue, 1963 Characters are from left to right: Magneto, Angel, Beast, Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Iceman.

Here's the team in First Class: Charles Xavier, Banshee, Havok, Erik, and Mystique. Everything about this picture is wrong. First, Charles should be wearing a suit, not the team uniform, because in the 1963 he was old, bald, in a wheelchair, and was running the school. Erik was already Magneto and they were already enemies. The other three kids in this photo shouldn't have been there. Havok showed up in 1969, Banshee and Mystique showed up in 1975. This should be a photo of Jean, Cyclops, Angel, Beast, and Iceman. If you can't even keep the players straight I don't know how you expect to do your source material justice. Timeline rant over. Now we can talk about what they are wearing.

X-Men First Class, 2011

These uniforms are clunky. They do not look retro 60's in comparison to the black leather ones. X-Men uniforms are supposed to be aerodynamic so they can do all their running, jumping, and flying. At least Samantha added yellow and blue (albeit really dark blue) to the basic black. And each costume has a tiny bit of individualizing to it. There are some minute differences on the jackets--not everyone has the same collar, Banshee has some piping detail that the others don't, and Havok has a subwoofer in his chest. However, the costumes are still not individualized enough-- the sleeves, belts, pants, and boots are all identical. My husband said, "They look like they're going to The Transformers Club on Bumblebee Fetish Night." I have provided you with Bumblebee from the animated series in 2008 for comparison.

Bumblebee

James Macavoy as Charles Xavier

​The point is that they don't look like X-Men. Now let me introduce you to Negasonic Teenage Warhead, from Deadpool, in her black and yellow costume which does look like an X-Men uniform. This is a much better design choice for that classic, sleek uniform, Fox! Be smart. Be like Deadpool!

Jean Grey

Negasonic Teenage Warhead

For Days of Future Past we're back to Louise Migenbach and her sea of all black, all the time. This installment moves the events of the past ahead 10 years into the 70's and the events of the present ten years into the future where the mutants are at war with the self-aware Sentinels, invented by the humans to defend themselves from mutants. Future mutants use their powers to send present Wolverine to the past to prevent the war that will start ten years in Wolverine's future. Yes, I know, time travel plot-lines are both confusing and full of holes which is why Zimbio has drawn up this handy-dandy infographic to help us.

​The yellow costumes from the past are gone. There is no 1970's team uniform because there is no team. Wolverine has to fix that. The present costumes get updated for the future with a bit more colored trim bits in among the black. And yes, that's Bobby with a beard, but no Rogue in this film, it's now Kitty Pryde that helps Professor X send Wolverine back to the past. I have no idea how her phasing powers allow her to do that and you won't find the answer in the link above either, because she can't, it's stupid, thanks a lot Fox!

Days of Future Past, 2014: all the mutants.

Days of Future Past, 2014: future mutants

By the time we get to Apocalyspe, the costumes get even worse. The team spends most of their time on a mission in all black Kevlar tactical gear.​Rogue got completely cut out of the last two movies, but worse than that, Storm is now a bad guy that the team is having to fight, along with Magneto, Psylocke, and Archangel.

Apocalypse, 2016

Apocalypse, 2016

​Storm has had almost nothing to do on screen in this entire franchise and by the time we get to Apocalypse and she's the bad guy helper monkey, she's almost mute. What the hell, Fox? Storm is not a bad guy, never has been, never will be. Rogue is the one who's origin story includes hanging out with the bad guys. Get your alignments straight! And if you still have unanswered questions from all the damn plot holes, here's answers to twelve burning questions from Screen Rant.

​​In this final installment we sort of get the classic 80's punk Storm, played by Alexandra Shipp. Well, we at least get the mohawk. This is the only X-Men who actually dressed in all black leather from her skin-tight pants to Callisto's war-trophy vest with popped collar. She accessorizes with knee-high boots, two belts, a studded choker, gloves, and lightning bolt earrings. This is a popular and well loved costume that lasted a long time in the comics. Your movie is set in the 80's why didn't you give us this costume? Instead what we get is this super-futuristic, cyborg armor- looking, grey-on-grey thing. And I see what you were trying to do, to unify the four Horsemen so that they all look like they belong on the same team with Apocalypse. And I would applaud you for that, if these were the actual Four Horsemen and not Storm, Psylocke, and Magneto.

Alexandra Shipp

Last, but not least, Psylocke is in this movie as one of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen. Are you seriously going to give us Psylocke at the very end of the prequels, have her play for the wrong team, lose, and then just leave and not repent of her evil ways and join the X-Men with Storm? Seriously? At the very least we get the most comic book accurate costume to date and only because the actress, Olivia Munn, is such a comic book nerd that she insisted on it. And even then, the boob armor is from out of nowhere. OK, Psylocke, I see you've protected your boobs. Fine. Then I shall stab you in the heart and you'll die instantly or I'll stab you in the guts and you'll bleed out much more slowly. Which do you prefer?

Psylocke

Olivia Munn

At the very end of the movie, the costumes are finally beginning to resemble colorful supersuits: Cyclops is wearing something that really does resemble his actual comic book costume. Beast is in blue, Nightcrawler is in red and has exaggerated shoulders. Mystique finally gets something that resembles her white dress from the comics, even if it's just the top and not the whole dress. Jean Grey is still in mostly all black but they've added small sections of yellow on her arms. Quicksilver and Storm are all matchy-matchy in grey on grey both with white/grey hair. They look like they're supposed to be brother/sister. Ignore the man in the plaid shirt, that's the director Bryan Singer. Meh.

Apocalypse, 2016

Apocalypse, 2016

And now we're getting two more movies-- New Mutants and Dark Phoenix which are scheduled to start filming immediately. I have no idea what those will have in store for us other than, because we didn't learn our lesson rebooting Wolverine's origin story, now we're going to take the worst thing about the first trilogy and do it again. I swear, if they don't do right by Dark Phoenix this time, the nerd rage will be strong with this franchise.

Deadpool Franchise

Deadpol was created in 1991 and is the baby of the Marvel Empire. He is an anti-hero, something you really hadn't seen in comics before. Deadpool started out as Wade Wilson, a mentally unstable mercenary soldier. Because of his mental condition he doesn't remember his personal history, which changed depending on who's writing the stories. He was based on a cross between Spider-man and Wolverine. His first origin story made him part of the Weapon X program, like Wolverine; another made him seek a cure for his cancer and instead was given the super healing serum. He is the only character who knows he's fictional and continuously breaks the fourth wall. He is the wise-cracking, taunting, hilarious "Merc with a Mouth". His primary superpower is accelerated healing; his weapons are two katana swords. His skin is heavily scarred from the serum's effects and in a 2004 Cable & Deadpool comic said that he looked like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and a Shar Pei and the rest, as we say, is history. His costume has become part of our mainstream pop culture and shows up everywhere these days. It's just as iconic as Spider-Man: red and black full body coverage, not as aerodynamically stretchy as Spidey, more tactical, in case he gets shot, than practical, which he does A LOT.

Colossus is a Russian mutant who's skin turns into metal. He wears a bright red and yellow Eugene Sandow leotard in the comic books. The only character you probably haven't heard of before is Negasonic Teenage Warhead. She was only in one issue--New X-Men No. 115 in 2001. She was a student at Professor X's school but was killed. She was a telepath and could see three days into the future. I guess she didn't see that coming. For this movie her powers get an update, but not her attitude. She's an Emo girl who took her name from a song by Monster Magnet that was released in 1995. I included the video because I knew you'd want to see it for yourself.

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

​The rights to Deadpool are also owned by Fox, with no loopholes like the X-Men. In the first movie he's part of the Weapon X program and gets his mouth sewn shut by the Doctor who gives him the super soldier serum. Fans hated that. You can't take the character known as "The Merc with a Mouth" and sew his mouth shut. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Also if you have Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool and Deadpool is supposed to look like Ryan Reynolds crossed with a Shar Pei, then this makeup is a disaster. If you don't know what a Shar Pei dog looks like, I've included a handy reference photo.

In terms of costuming Deadpool, Louise Migenbach is back with another sea of black para-military costumes. Everybody in Team X is a mutant and all of them could be wearing supersuits, but no. This is why I didn't bother talking about this movie earlier. For Wade Wilson you get two looks: Pre-superserum special-ops Kevlar vest over red t-shirt and OD pants and Post-superserum no Deadpool supersuit just wierd black lines on naked chest. WTF, Louise?

The first appearance of Deadpool was such a disaster, it's amazing that Ryan Reynolds was able to get his movie made at all. Luckily for us, he succeeded and it was so successful, ($783 million worldwide) it's going to get a sequel. And NONE of that money goes to Marvel. Poor Marvel.

So, the Deadpool suit is amazing. It looks exactly like the comic book and even though we can't see Ryan Reynold's mouth move that doesn't hinder his snappy dialogue a la Bane in Dark Knight 3. If you read the Tyranny of Style article, you'll find out that the studio responsible for engineering his suit is Russ Shinkle of Film Illusions. They are the real-life Edna Modes. You may not have heard of them before, but they were also responsible for all of the Avengers supersuits. Russ and his team had to make multiple copies of Deadpool's suit for Ryan and his two stunt men, (really just two stunt men? Wow.) and each headpiece was designed with multiple removable eyes that were tailored to the needs of each particular stunt... that's singular.

Here's what Ryan Reynolds looks like as Deadpool. It looks a lot like what was drawn on the comic book cover.

I could wax poetical about the awesomeness of their achievement in costuming, but we also need to talk about the two X-Men in this film: Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. We've seen a Colossus before in The X-Men Franchise, as played by Daniel Cudmore (who is an impressive 6'6" and was even asked to play the part but turned it down because it was going to be all CGI) and he's no wimp, but just like Lou Ferrigno's Hulk, he suffers only by comparison to the comic book. Yes these guys are huge and muscley, but they aren't GIANTS. Colossus has to be a giant. If you read the Collider article it tells how they actually used 5 actors to bring Colossus to life because none of them were the 7'6" tall that director Tim Miller wanted. Even Andre Tricoteaux, who wore the motion capture suit on set and is pictured below doing stunt work, is only 6'11". He's huge, but he's bulky rather than sculpted and Colossus really needs to be a modern day Eugene Sandow.

​​In terms of Colossus' costume, you already know how I feel about all of the costumes in the X-Men franchise up to this point. They are boring because they are all black and all the same all the time. So this version of Colossus is a vast improvement. No, he's not in the bright red and yellow Eugene Sandow leotard of the comic book as pictured above. They have kept the same basic X-marks-the-spot splashed across the chest but at least they've colored some of the X in red. Also, I'd like to point out that this is the best CGI rendering of clothing I've seen to date. When I watch this movie I totally believe that the CGI character is wearing IRL clothes. Just look at the cast shadow of his left arm on his vest and pants. Wow, CGI department, you did a great job.

Andre Tricoteaux wearing a motion capture suit

CGI Colossus

​​For Negasonic Teenage Warhead, they've also kept the basic black and yellow suit from First Class but made it way sleeker with more area in yellow. The other improvement over First Class is that there's no cleavage- revealing, zipped all the way down to her navel thing going on in this movie the way Mystique wore it. Yes, in general these two costumes are still mostly black and yes they are tactical rather than spandex, however, I am not being forced to look at a dozen or more actors all wearing black. There are three actors: Deadpool is in red with black accents, Colossus is in black with red accents, and NSTW is in black with yellow accents, you know who's in ALL black? The bad guys. So where does our eye go in fight scenes? To the color! We are naturally drawn to watching the heros who stand out against a background of black. The one exception is NSTW's first costume is entirely black, but that's part of her character as an Emo girl.

Brianna Hildebrand Negasonic Teenage Warhead

Brianna Hildebrand Negasonic Teenage Warhead

Interviews with Designers

The Avengers Franchise

The Avengers debuted in 1963 with a group of pre-existing superheroes that had only just been created a year or less before. Marvel got the idea of joining their characters together from DC's Justice League. The original team included Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and the Wasp with Captain America (the only Golden Age hero) joining them as soon as he was discovered frozen in ice. Each character or team gets its own section so keep scrolling down and you'll find all of your favorite superheroes assembled here.

The Avengers, 1952

With the exception of Captain America, none of the Avengers had been invented by 1952 and in fact wouldn't be for another 10 years. But Ivan Guerrero brilliantly edited these films into a trailer for a film that predates most of its characters by a decade. There's a ton of easter eggs in there for the old movie fan.

The Avengers 2012-Present

​Universal owned Hulk, New Line cinema owned Iron Man, Sony owned Thor, Lion's Gate owned Black Widow, and Columbia owned Black Panther, but by 2006 Marvel had gotten them all back. Time to assemble The Avengers!

Captain America

Captain America is Marvel's only Golden Age superhero. He's the original Super Soldier. Steve Rogers, an actual WW II soldier is the product of a covert military experiment. He carries an indestructible shield. Near the end of the war he was frozen in ice and remained trapped in suspended animation for years until he was discovered and awakened to join the newly formed team of Avengers. That's not just his origin story, that is literally what happened to the character. Superheroes fell out of popularity after the war so his title was retired in 1949. He stayed on ice until 1964 when he was brought out of his golden age retirement to do battle with a team of new Silver Age superheroes.

Like Wonder Woman at DC, he wears the most patriotic supersuit of all the Marvel characters. His costume is mostly blue with red and white stripes around his abdomen. His gloves and boots are red and the lower part of his sleeves are white. He wears a white star on his chest and his hood has a white A on the forehead with white wings above the ears.

Gallery of Costume Design

​Captain America came to the big screen in the film serials of 1944, just three years after being introduced in the comics. Because his suit was being filmed in black and white, it is difficult to recognize his colors as red and blue since the saturation level of both those colors in our flag are about the same. The "blue" reads black and the "red" and white stripes on his abdomen read too light to be red. His lower sleeves are white in the comic books, but here they are the same "blue" as the saggy tights and briefs. His gloves, boots, and briefs read the same color--black--not red or blue. Speaking of boots, he's not wearing the tall red boots with a cuff from the comics, he's in a pair of dressy ankle-length work boots.

Colorized Poster

Dick Purcell, 1944

​1979 saw the release of two Captain America movies; Captain America and its sequel Captain America II: Death too Soon. Reb Brown played Steve Rogers in both of them but wore two different suits; the movies had two different designers. The first one is reminiscent of the jumpsuit Evel Knievel made famous but it could just be the addition of the motorcycle and helmet. This suit is not comic book canon. It's a high-necked, long-sleeved leotard worn over tights made from the same shiny lycra. The red and white stripes are worked into the leotard not around the abdomen but over the shoulder like a vest. The motorcycle helmet has the white wings painted on with the A in front. The boots, gloves, and belts are all matching red leather with white stars and a stripe. The shield is attached to the motorcycle and looks to be made from clear acrylic with the red stripes painted on. It seems to be functioning as the windshield. The central star is blue rather than white.

Reb Brown, 1979

Evel Kneivel, 1971

​​In the sequel, the stripes move to the abdomen where they belong, but become all wrinkley, the lower sleeves are white, the gloves lose their stars and stripe, and the wings on the helmet are now 3D rather than painted on. Also, his belt is blue not red.

Reb Brown, 1979 Death Too Soon

​Then there was the low budget 1990 movie which was a vast improvement over the 1979 ones. The suit is much closer to the Silver Age comic that the previous one--no motorcycle helmet or goggles, no clear acrylic shield, much smaller wings. The problem with this version is it's got sculpted-in muscles, the fabric doesn't look like fabric at all, and it makes Matt Salinger's body look like a Stretch Armstrong doll.

Matt Salinger, 1990

Stretch Armstrong

Comic books weren't selling well, this movie didn't help and by 1996 Marvel filed for bankruptcy. Marvel was about to sell Captain America to Warner Bros. when the idea for Marvel Studios was hatched and the deal was stopped before the papers were signed, thanks to David Maisel.

In the 2011 movie designed by Anna B. Sheppard, the USO version of the suit looks remarkably similar to the Golden Age comics even down to the shape of the shield. The only thing that's off is there are no blue stripes on the shield. Because this is really a period film, all the fabrics are made from fibers that were actually around in the 1940's: wool, cotton, flannel, etc.. The suit is clearly made from natural fibers and not some lycra/spandex/latex blend. The boots have a cuff, the gloves are the appropriate length and taper away from his arm. The hood includes eyeholes and the wings are both 3D and small. And in case you're still wondering how they made Chris Evans so puny at the beginning of the first movie, fxguide: "Case Study: How to Make a Captain America wimp" will divulge all the fx secrets.

​Chris gets three suits in the first movie, two in Winter Soldier, one in Ultron, and two in Civil War. There are tiny little differences between all the suits and if you're really interested you can read Geek Tyrant: "The Evolution of Captain America's Uniform" who will painstakingly point them all out to you. At this point I am not interested in doing that because the costumes are great, and if I can't point out bad things, then what's the point? They're all great movies that you can watch over and over again without getting tired of them.

Bucky Barnes and Falcon

​Bucky Barnes debuted right alongside Steve Rogers as Captain America's teen-aged sidekick in the very first issue in 1941. Cap and Bucky fought Nazis together throughout WWII until the plane exploded killing Bucky and dropping Cap into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Later, it is revealed that Bucky didn't die in the explosion but instead was rescued by Russian submarine and taken to Moscow where his severed arm was replaced by a bionic one. Due to his amnesia, he was trained as an assassin and called Winter Soldier during which time he had an affair with KGB spy, Natasha Romanova soon to become Black Widow.

Bucky starts off in a blue military style tunic with what looks like attached briefs trimmed with a yellow collar. He has red tights and gloves, blue boots and a black domino mask. As the Winter Soldier, he is in all black with his vibranium bionic arm with Soviet red star on the deltoid. He stays in the black domino mask. His hair is now long and shaggy and he looks like a cross between Severus Snape and Peter Pettigrew with his silver hand. It makes me wonder if Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (the writer and artist) were big Harry Potter fans.

Falcon was introduced in 1969 and was the first African-American superhero. When he was introduced it was not as a sidekick, but as a partner throughout the 1970's; the comics were titled Captain America and The Falcon. Sam Wilson was stranded on an island where he finds and befriends a falcon that he names Redwing. Also on the island is a group of exiled Nazi's who were supporting Red Skull during WW II. Sam actually got his powers from Red Skull when he fuses Sam and Redwing's minds giving Sam telepathic control over birds. Captain America tracks the Exiles to the island, teams up with Sam to help create the mechanical wings he uses to fly, thus creating the Falcon persona. They eventually defeat the Exiles and Red Skull, and remain a team thereafter. By 1979 Falcon has become so popular he gets his own title, but by 2004 he and Cap have teamed up again. Ten years later, Sam becomes Captain America when Steve Rogers steps out of the role in 2014.

Falcon starts off in a green and orange costume that has a deep V cut out in the chest. but no wings. He wears one thick glove, a mask, and a falcon necklace. Later, his unitard changes colors to become the classic red and white keeping the same deep V with red wings. Now he has a white mask and two white gloves

Gallery of Costume Design

​Bucky is a full-fledged soldier and thus gets a General Issue uniform to start. His Howling Commando uniform is certainly influenced by the comic book original but has been updated considerably. The top is a blue tunic with collar (not yellow) and he has boots and a belt. The tights and briefs combo has been replaced with brown fatigues.

​In Winter Soldier we finally get to meet Falcon but he only gets a prototype of his wings in this movie. Bucky's costume is taken directly from the source material: all black, para-military. The vibranium arm looks fantastic on camera and his hair is perfectly shaggy and hanging in his face a la Severus Snape. The only real difference is that instead of the domino mask covering his eyes, he wears a half mask that covers the lower half of his face. I'm not sure what the idea behind this is. He's not snow skiing, so all this is really doing is making it difficult for the actor to eat, breathe, and talk and therefore for us the audience members to understand what he's saying.

​​We finally meet Sam Wilson in Winter Soldier. Sam retired from active duty USAF to help vets suffering from PTSD at the VA, where he meets Steve who is now working for SHIELD and they become friends. Falcon gets his wings and goes on a mission with Cap and Black Widow to take out the Winter Soldier who attacked Nick Fury, only to discover that it's Bucky. It takes until Ant-Man before Sam gets his upgrade costume. It's still not great, but it's a vast improvement. You'd think that since Tony Stark made it, it would be more colorful. At the bottom of this section is an interview where Anthony Mackie is pissed because he didn't get the full on red spandex and wings treatment with an actual falcon from the get-go. It does my heart good to hear an actor saying he wants a more colorful and outrageous costume.

Ant-Man and Wasp

Ant-Man debuted in 1962, while Wasp was added a year later in 1963 as a love interest for him. Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym and Janet van Dyne met when Janet's father, noted scientist Vernon van Dyne was killed when he unleashed an alien force during one of his experiments Janet turned to her father's associate Hank to help her avenge her father's death. Hank has invented Pym particles which reduce the size of a human to the size of an ant. It also allows Janet to grow wings. They join forces to defeat the alien and in the course of working so closely together, Janet falls in love with Hank and eventually they start dating. Over the course of their crime-fighting partnership they discover that they can also use the Pym particles to grow giant sized. After Janet's death, Hank allowed his successor Scott Lang to take up the Ant-Man persona. Scott was an electronics expert working for Tony Stark when he stole the Ant-Man suit from Hank in order to save his daughter Cassie from a heart condition. Later, upon her father's death, Cassie also becomes a crime-fighter called Stature, and can now change sizes without the need of the suit as well as communicate telepathically with the ants. Too many second-hand Pym particles?

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

The first Ant-Man suit was designed to be the original Hank Pym suit from the 1960's. It functions much like an astronaut's suit, delivering oxygen along with the Pym particles, cooling Ant-Man's body from the excessive heat generation, and defying the excessive density created by his shrinking. That's a lot to ask of one simple suit. The face mask has an elongated snout to suggest anty-ness and there's tubing coming out the back like antenna.

​We get a brief glimpse of the original Wasp suit worn by Janet Pym in the first movie. It's design is also very 60's retro. I wish we'd gotten to see Hope in it.

​The Ant-Man suit you see in Civil War has gotten a high-tech upgrade by Stark Industries. I just love that plot device. Every movie we get new costumes because Tony Stark rolled out an upgrade. This one gets big as well as small. And no more exposed tubing on the helmet that could get pulled out by your enemies and cause you to suffocate from lack of oxygen.

​We've already got a photo of Evangeline Lily in the Wasp suit from Ant-Man and Wasp which is coming out next year. The wings seem improbably big and clunky, especially in comparison to the original pair worn by Janet, but I'll reserve judgement till I see them in context.

Hulk

Hulk debuted in 1962. Physicist Dr. Bruce Banner was fooling around with gamma radiation when an experiment went wrong and he was exposed. When he becomes angry or emotionally stressed, he turns into the green-skinned giant called The Hulk. "HULK SMASH!" Hulk doesn't get a supersuit or even much of a costume. His body mutation really is his supersuit, all 1000 lbs of angry, green muscle. His pants have been purple, tan, and brown, depending on what Bruce is wearing before he gets upset.

​Gallery of Costume Design

So there's not much to talk about here because, outside of Lou Ferrigno, the modern day Hulks are CGI. I wasn't even going to include Hulk, but here he is for completeness sake. At the end are interviews with the CGI teams if you are interested in how they did it.

Eric Bana's Hulk.

Edward Norton's Hulk.

Mark Ruffalso's Hulk.

With all the improvements that have been made to CGI and motion capture suits since Andy Serkis played Gollum in LOTR, it's kind of amazing to see the nuanced performance that's possible now. This goes way beyond getting rid of Ralph Fiennes' nose when he plays Voldemort. Mark has spoken at length on the subject of the future of motion capture, "We’re just scratching the surface of this thing. This is the most exciting frontier as an actor, what’s happening in motion capture. And I want to be on the leading edge of it. I want to be there with Andy Serkis who is leading it in his own way. This is all about performance, an actor’s performance using this new kind of makeup really. It’s not different than that."

THOR

Thor debuted in 1962. Thor is the Asgardian god of thunder who wields the enchanted hammer Mjolnir, which gives him the power of flight and control over the weather. Thor is all armored up in a breastplate and winged helmet, leather boots, and flowing red cape.

Gallery of Costume Design

​Thor, played by Eric Kramer in the 1988 Hulk movie, looks more like an actual Viking rather than an Asgardian god. This is not how Thor looked in the comic books ever. That helmet really needs some horns or wings or something. I swear those pants are Naugahyde and he's wearing my mom's old coat under that breastplate. I know it's the late 80's but I swear this was made in the 70's. But it's funny so we can laugh at it and move on.

Alexandra Byrne did an amazing job on Thor (and the rest of the Asgardians). The cape is perfect, the breastplate has the little circles on it, the only thing that's slightly off is the color could be a bit brighter shade of blue rather than this two-tone grey.

​ I wish he wore the helmet more!

​ I can't really speak about the Ragnarok costumes since that movie won't come out till November, but I am sad to see his hair gone. I hope he gets it back later on in the movie. This costume has a lot in common with the original naugahyde and sheepskin version in the Hulk, except no sheepskin. It is more tastefully done, but alas, no helmet at all.

Iron Man and War Machine

Iron Man debuted in 1963. Tony Stark is a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and he also happens to be an engineer, inventor, and a weapons manufacturer. He was kidnapped and forced to build a bomb but in the course of escape pieces of shrapnel became stuck in his chest. He must wear a super magnet to keep the shrapnel from entering his heart and killing him. Iron Man's suit is a combo red and gold suit of body armor or a full metal jacket, if you will.

​War Machine is Tony's friend James "Rhodey" Rhodes, an American fighter pilot, who becomes Tony's personal pilot and eventually a superhero in his own right, wearing his own version of the Iron Man suit, as War Machine, in 1979. War Machine's suit is of a cooler palette--silver and black.

Gallery of Costume Design

The first film on here is a made for TV movie called Exo-Man that was made in 1977 and designed by Yvonne Wood. Exo-Man isn't exactly Tony Stark but I get the feeling that CBS wanted to make an Iron Man movie but couldn't get the rights to Iron Man so they made this instead. Dr. Nicholas Conrad is a crime-fighting scientist who wears a metal suit to beat up the bad guys, but more importantly to keep him alive and to help him walk since he was paralyzed during a mob hit. It's basically a failed pilot for a series and the suit makes the good doctor look like a giant penis.

Even more brilliant is this trailer someone put together from footage of all those CBS movies I just mentioned plus Paul Lynde's Halloween special, a KISS special, and other shows that were on at the time. It's pretty convincing. Check out the actor they call Tony Stark.

Modern day Iron Man looks AMAZING! His costume designers, Laura Jean Shannon and Rebecca Benjen, were nominated for a.costume designer's guild award. They lost (not to Dark Knight which won the Fantasy category) to Slumdog MIllionaire in the Contemporary category. They were in the wrong category. This isn't costuming so much as it is armory.

Stan Winston Studios created the Cave Escape suit and the Mark III suit for the first film. The cave escape suit weighed 90 lbs and was made of foam and epoxy "armor" that sat on an aluminum frame attached to a sturdy corset with leather sleeves. The Mark III suit was designed before Robert Downey Jr. had been cast and was retro-fitted onto him afterwards. The suits were all going to be CGI because the studio didn't think that a real suit would work on camera. Stan Winston's team set out to prove them wrong. You can read all about it in the two articles below.

Tony Stark also made War Machine which is actually Don Cheadle in Tony's Mark II suit in the second film. Then Tony goes on a psychotic inventing binge and makes another 50 suits and we end up with the Iron Army which you can read all about at the end because some other incredibly OCD person put together an infographic of ALL THE SUITS! There are 42. Is that a Douglas Adams Easter Egg? Maybe.

Black Widow and Hawkeye

Black Widow debuted in 1964 as KGB secret agent Natasha Romanova who fought Iron Man but later switched sides and joined SHIELD. She is enhanced with the same super soldier serum that was given to Captain America. At first she only wore street clothes because she is a spy and needed to blend in. When she first donned her supersuit, it had a lot in common with the Golden Age Black Canary: blue and black color scheme, Playboy bunny leotard, fishnets, mask, boots. Black Widow wore a cape and gloves rather than a bolero jacket.

​Hawkeye also appeared in 1964. His name is Clint Barton. After being orphaned at a young age, Clint ran away and joined the circus where he was trained to be a master archer. After seeing Iron Man, he decided to be a superhero. Unfortunately he met Black Widow when she was still a KGB spy, fell in love with her, and turned reluctantly to a life of crime, only to be abandoned by her after saving her from Iron Man. From then on, he fought crime with The Avengers. Hawkeye's costume is always blue and purple color scheme: usually blue tunic worn over tights with purple hood, mask, gloves, boots, and trim pieces.

Gallery of Costume Design

At first glance, Black Widow and Hawkeye seem to be the most mundanely clothed of the Avengers, especially compared to the more colorful Cap, Thor, Iron Man, and the Big Green Guy. They are the only two that didn't get their own origin story movie before they showed up in The Avengers and they are dressed almost entirely in black. And I know I was just complaining about The X-Men being in all black and what a bad choice that was but I am fine with Black Widow being in all black because she is wearing what is essentially her classic costume, once she got over her Black Canary phase with the blue fishnets. She can be in black as long as Hawkeye is NOT in black as well. Because then they look the same except he doesn't have sleeves. It's actually in his contract--no sleeves--the "my costume must show off my guns" clause. And I'm fine with that too, because original Hawkeye's costume was also sleeveless. But classic Hawkeye's costume was also bright blue and purple. And giving him a bit of dark burgundy trim does not make it purple or colorful or accurate.

​​I don't know what all went down in the meetings between Ultron and Civil War, but someone decided to change his costume. A jacket version of the black and burgundy vest was built and filmed for Ultron. It had two sleeves. Two more alternate costumes made it to the concept art phase and were even released by Jeremy Renner, but neither of them made it into the final versions of Civil War. His costume in Civil War is black, not purple, not dark blue, it's black. Check out the photo against the green screen background. It is unfortunate that these looks were killed in the concept art phase because both of them are better than what he wore in the first two movies.

Iron Man 2

Avengers

Winter Soldier

Age of Ultron

Civil War

Thor

Avengers

Hawkeye wasn't in Winter Soldier because he was too busy filming other movies. There was going to be a scene where Hawkeye has to chase down Captain America through DC for SHIELD, but instead of turning him in, tells him there's a tracker in his suit.

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver

Scarlet Witch and her twin brother Quicksilver debuted in the original run of X-Men in 1964. They were Magneto's children and were named Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They began as reluctant bad guys fighting the X-Men but later turned to good and fought with The Avengers. Scarlet Witch's powers are magic; Quicksilver's are being super speedy. Scarlet Witch marries Vision. Quicksilver marries Crystal, one of the Inhumans. In the comics Scarlet Witch wears a red leotard, cape, gloves, and boots, over a pink unitard. She is a ginger. Quicksilver wears a blue unitard with a white lighting bolt logo across the chest. He also wears white gloves and boots and has white hair.

Timeline of Comics Costumes

​Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

Although Marvel and Fox share the rights to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Fox owns the word mutant, so Magneto's children couldn't be mutants in The Avengers films and that's why their origin story was changed.

​I am underwhelmed for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. They are great characters but I hate their costumes, Scarlet Witch most of all. I know there was a faction of women out there that were glad they didn't put Elizabeth Olsen in a red leotard with pink tights. I get that they didn't want her character to be overly sexualized and I'm all for that. But that's on the original artists which is a whole other conversation that we will have later, I promise. For now, let's just focus on what's wrong with Scarlet Witch and what Alexandra Byrne could have done differently. And I understand that she may have had her own ideas about the costumes, but in the Hollywood machine of movie making, the design ideas are a trickle down economy--from the director to the art director to the concept sketch artist to the costume designer to the people that actually build the supersuit. In the case of Magneto's children, it never got that far. I found concept art for three different looks for Scarlet Witch's "supersuit" in Civil War and they all look like clothes. In fact they look a lot like what Dark Phoenix wore in X-Men: Last Stand.

Interviews with Designers

​Vision and Black Panther

​​Vision was originally created by the robot Ultron as a weapon against The Avengers. He has a jewel in his forehead that provides the power he needs to function as well as being capable of firing laser beams. This version of the character appeared in 1968. Vision eventually changes sides, joins The Avengers and marries Scarlet Witch. In the comics Vision wears a green suit and cowl with a yellow cape, corset, briefs, gloves, and boots.​Black Panther was the first black superhero in comics. He debuted in 1966 but was not named for the Black Panther party because he pre-exists it. His given name is T'Challa and he is the King and Protector of Wakanda in Africa. A meteorite made of vibranium crashed in Wakanda and so the chiefs have worked to hide the country from the outside world to protect their mineral. While still a young man, he met and fell in love with Ororo Munroe who would grow up to be Storm. They broke off their relationship so he could avenge his father's death. His supersuit uses the vibranium for claws. He eventually marries Storm and joins the Avengers. Black Panther wears a black suit woven from vibranium so that it resists all bullets. It has a cowl/mask that resembles a black panther face. His gloves have vibranium claws--the same material that Captain America's shield is made from. He wears a necklace that is the symbol of the King of Wakanda and eats a special heart shaped herb to get his superpowers.

Timeline of Comics Costumes

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

The Vision suit was worn over a muscle suit and was enhanced with CGI effects. Paul Bettany wore a cowl, gauntlets, greeves, and cape hardware that was fabricated by the makeup department. This has nothing to do with the green and gold supersuit he wore in the comics but I am OK with this design because it looks like A supersuit even if it's not THE supersuit. It's way better than what Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver got. And he is bald and wearing a cowl that comes to a point and ends in the Infinity Stone. He does have a gold cape and boots. He doesn't get gloves, but he does get gauntlets and they are pretty fancy. I feel like this suit does a better job of making his character look more like a self-aware OS in a robot body. He looks cybernetic and technological and circuit-y. And I absolutely love the fuschia color they chose for his skin. Way to go, Marvel for using bright colors and shooting scenes in daylight!

​Black Panther looks really good too. I love that the suit incorporates the virbranium elements. And the claws are retractable. ​Chadwick Boseman is the Black Panther and he's getting his solo movie adventure next year. These first two photos are concept art, but they look great and it's amazing to see how accurately the designs were interpreted in fabric.

These two photos were taken during a costume fitting. Even without lighting and CGI, the suit still looks amazing. The vibranium bits show up really well against the black. I love the two-tone effect of the textured matt fabric against the shiny solid fabric.

This was shot under camera lighting conditions against a green screen background. The "vibranium" elements in the mask and cowl show up even better.

​The HuffPost article below has many more images of the new film. The costumes in the trailer alone are making me super excited to see it.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange appeared in 1963. Stephen Strange was a very successful but egotistical surgeon when a car accident shattered the bones in his hands and he was no longer able to perform surgery. He exhausts all his wealth to find a cure, finally traveling to the Himalayas to seek out The Ancient One, an old and wise Tibetan mystic. He refuses to heal Stephen because of his arrogance but eventually does train him in the mystic arts. After completing his training, Dr. Strange travels to New York and becomes the Sorcerer Supreme who protects the Earth from mystical threats. He has a red Cloak of Levitation and a necklace called the Eye of Agamotto that gives him added powers.

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

Doctor Strange hasn't seen a lot of live action performances. The ​first was a 1978 made for TV movie designed by Yvonne Wood. If you've been paying attention thus far, she also designed two other made for TV superhero movies in 1978 Exo-Man and in 1979 Captain America II: Death Too Soon. If only she'd lived another 10 years to do The Incredible Hulk Returns in 1988 she'd have hit The Avengers jackpot. (The Incredible Hulk Returns is the one that has both Hulk and Thor in it.) Peter Hooten played the Doctor. His costume has more in common with Club 54 than the Mystic Arts. Stan Lee had a lot of input on this film and in his words, it tanked because it was up against Roots.

Doctor Strange wouldn't see another screen for almost 40 years. This time Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as Dr. Strange and Alexandra Byrne designed the costumes. This is the costume that fascinates me the most. I love the intricacies of the different variations of the indigo dye used on the multiple layers of fabric that make up just the tunic. It's Jedi costumes to the Nth degree. Also: BEST CAPE ON FILM EVER.

​The Cloak of Levitation had its own crew of 20 from the full costuming team of 100. It was the "single biggest undertaking" of the film's costumes. There were 18 different cloaks designed for specific uses in each scene, plus the CGI one that did all the actual levitating and cheek caressing. Alexandra Byrne was also responsible for all the sling rings and the Eye of Agamotto. The first photo is the concept art.

You can see that the back of the cape turned out a bit differently in the photo below.

Daredevil and ElektraFranchise

Introduced in 1964, Daredevil is the most well-known superhero comic about a regular guy with a disability. Matt Murdock was blinded as a child by a car collision in Hell's Kitchen. His dad is a boxer is killed when he won't take a dive for the mob. Matt grows up to become a criminal defense lawyer by day and a costumed vigilante seeking to exact justice for his dad's murder by night. And keeping the streets safe as well.

​​Elektra is a Frank Miller character. She first appeared in 1981 as Matt Murdock's love interest. Elektra Natchios is Greek and attended Columbia where she met Matt and they fell in love. She and her father were kidnapped by terrorists and although Matt (pre-vigilante) tried to save them, her father was murdered. Grieving for her father, she goes to China to learn martial arts. She eventually joins a league of assassins called The Hand where she learns black magic and hones her fighting skills. She uses a pair of daggers called sais as her trademark weapon. She was hired by Kingpin to kill Daredevil; in fighting with him his true identity was revealed. Once she found out her target was her old college boyfriend, she couldn't kill him.

​Gallery of Costume Design

​Rex Smith made an appearance as Daredevil in the second Hulk movie back in 1989. Up until that point Daredevil had only been in yellow and black and then red and black. I feel like the budget didn't support a supersuit what with the heavy makeup bill for the Green Guy. In a "life imitating art" move, the comics then put Daredevil in all black four years later, except, according to Marvel, it was actually Frank Miller and John Romita's idea and had already been in the works when the TV movie aired.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner played our heroes in 2003, 2005 iterations. For the movie Daredevil gets an all red suit that had little in common with the comics version of 1965. It was a very dark red and all leather with a zipper up the center front and the DD logo much smaller and moved to the side. Jennifer Garner is dressed all in black in a leather bustier and pants combo, showing a lot of bare midriff, with fingerless gloves and high-heeled boots. No do-rag in sight.

​When Elektra gets her own movie, she's dressed in the right color, still no do-rag though. She gets a lovely tunic with a hood instead that has Chinese characters embroidered on it. The strips around her wrists and upper bicep are canon, but she's still in high-heeled boots which Elektra (as a Ninja assassin) never wore. it's really hard to sneak up on someone you are trying to murder in high-heels. Her costume is a precious red satin corset and matching pants with see-thru bits as well as decorative pleating and stitching that seems super impractical for fighting, not that her classic Ninja bikini is any better but it does lack these fussy finishing details. This outfit seems more suited to a roller disco than a night of murder and mayhem. In fact, she and the 1978 Doctor Strange should go out on a date together. They'd be the coolest couple at the disco!

These days, Charlie Cox and Elodie Yung are playing our heroes on TV. The modern iteration of Daredevil makes up one quarter of the Marvel Netflix Universe along with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, all designed by Stephanie Maslansky, who is also in charge of costumes for their mash-up show, The Defenders, coming to Netflix in August, 2017.

Matt Murdock does his vigilanty-ing in the all black ninja outfit from Frank Miller's run. Later on in Season One, he gets his red with black bits supersuit. Elektra shows up in Season Two and also starts off in a basic black tank and pants with a red cowl-necked undershirt that also functions as a mask to cover the lower half of her face. She too gets an upgrade by the end of the season. We only get a tease of the side view in their fight with Punisher but hopefully in Season Three we'll get a better view. There seems to be a lot of leather going on. Matt's suit also gets tweaked in Season Two. I feel like there's more black bits and the red is a bit darker.

Guardians of the Galaxy Franchise

Guardians of the Galaxy was created in 1969. The only original team member that made it to the big screen was Yondu. Our more or less "present day" team members were due to the 2008 reboot. Those characters are Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, Gamora, Mantis, and Nebula. Star-Lord (real name Peter Quill) is the only Earthling on the team.

Live Action Appearances

Gallery of Costume Design

Here we are with yet another team movie: The Guardians of the Galaxy--Star-Lord, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Gamora. Alexandra Byrne designed the team uniform at the end to be the 5th generation of Ravager's clothing. Even though Rocket was a CGI character, Byrne made all the costumes for his maquette so they could be scanned and digitized. Groot, being a tree, doesn't need a costume in this film. Star-Lord gets three different jackets in the first film and a sci-fi helmet that looks a lot like Ant-Man's helmet. Although since this film came out before the Ant-Man film, it's probably the other way around, since neither helmet looks like the source material.

This is a good time to make an important point. In case you hadn't noticed, Marvel Comics has been changing their characters to more accurately reflect their Cinematic counterparts and devoted fans are not happy about it. Here's three opinions on the subject in case you'd like to go down this rabbit-hole.

My personal opinion as a lover of books in general, and as a professional theatre practitioner, is that usually the book is better than the movie that was made from it. I have had tremendous amounts of nerd-rage when seeing movies made from books I love that didn't do justice to the source material. For me, the point of doing a play is to honor the playwright's intent, first and foremost. But theatre is a living, breathing medium and times change. We can bring new life to old plays by fooling around with time and place, making different casting choices, letting the director have a different vision and then supporting that vision with appropriate costumes. That's my job. And because of this fluidity in theatre, I am OK with seeing a subject get a reboot with a new treatment by a different director, as long as the author's intent is still visible. But I do think it's a bit odd (and a bad choice) for the source material to start changing because of one director's vision. I suppose if Marvel is making money hand over fist with Guardians of the Galaxy the film franchise, that leads them to believe that they would get more readers and thus sell more books by making the books look like the movies.

But once you fall down that slippery slope, what are the writers and artists supposed to do now? The comic books have decades of stories, character development, and nuanced relationships, that all get squeezed down into an overly simplified version of one story with a few characters that can be told in two and a half hours. Where does that leave the original characters? The movies pull from the source material, cherry picking what elements they want to keep in. Once the books ARE the movies, what will be left to cherry pick from? Is the money really worth throwing away the creativity, fluidity and freedom of your bullpen of writers and artists? How can they dream up something new when you've confined them to one way of doing things? The other side effect for those fans of the movie that were not familiar with the source material beforehand but now want to go back and check it out is that they may be disappointed when they realize it's EXACTLY the same. You lose the joy of finding the nuance that the movie left out. You might as well read the rushed-out, cheap "book of the movie" paperback being sold at your local grocery store. To me it just smacks too much of 1984 "We've always been at war with Eastasia." Stop ret-conning the books to be like the movies.The books get ret-conned enough as it is. I guess the consolation prize for all those angry that the cinematic universe has changed the comics universe is that it's just a phase and once there's no more movies being made, the books can ret-con themselves back to the way they were. Here's another article on this topic that just lays it all out without arguing one way or another. ScreenRant: "Guardians of the Galaxy: How 15 Characters Compare to the Comics"

​Back to the topic. I just love this movie. It has so much color! And it's so much fun, once you get past the part where Peter's mother dies. I know the nerd-rage is strong with the fans of the comic books because these movies really have gone way off source material, but since I never read these comics before, I don't have anything to be angry about. Someone finally made movies about space that aren't dystopian. This isn't Alien, or Pitch Black or even Dune. It doesn't take itself seriously and it has a great soundtrack. It makes me happy, especially Groot!

Vol. 1, 2014

Star-Lord

Rocket

Drax

Gamora

Nebula

Groot

Yondu

In the next installment we get a new character, Mantis, plus two bad guys come over to the good side--Yondu and Nebula. Star-Lord gets another couple of new jackets, Gamora and Nebula go back to basic black but Nebula gets a red Ravagers uniform at the end. Yondu gets a bigger mohawk, and Baby Groot gets a uniform too. Peter finds his real dad, who's a dick, only to realize Yondu was a better daddy all along. Awww. It gives me all the feels. The minute this comes out on DVD, I'm buying it.